The first meeting of the International Detector Advisory Group (IDAG) for the ILC detectors was held in Warsaw during the ECFA Linear Collider workshop on 9 and 10 June. There were both open and closed sessions. The closed meeting became a good chance for the IDAG members to meet with each other, the Letter-of-Intent (LOI) representatives and research directorate members in order to share their views as to what their tasks are and how the validation process can be made. On the first day Barry Barish, GDE Director, was able to join so that we could clarify the planning for the entire ILC design procedure in the discussions. During the open session, the three groups preparing for LOIs presented their concepts and plans to reach completion of LOIs. The presentations were made by one of the two representatives of each group: Ties Behnke of DESY for ILD, Harry Weerts of ANL for SiD and John Hauptmann of Iowa State University for the 4th concept. They were followed the next day, by closed meetings with the individual groups inviting the available representatives and a few more experts. As the LOI groups are in the middle of LOI preparation, IDAG did not go into detail. It was more the LOI groups who raised questions as to what is needed for the LOIs and what will happen after they submit them. Details for the future are not fixed yet. Summarising these discussions, IDAG will make a list of additional questions which they think are important on top of the more general guidelines given by the ILCSC last October. Many IDAG members were also able to attend the entire workshop in order to get ideas on the status of R&D studies and design work.

IDAG members at the last ILC-ECFA Workshop in Warsaw. Photo: Perrine Royole-Degieux

Another fruitful meeting during the ECFA workshop was an informal get-together of all the presently known members of the common task groups and the LOI representatives with the three regional contacts and myself Some members who could not attend the workshop joined via Webex.

The common task groups will work on common issues which will be crucial for the LOI groups. Members from all the LOI groups will collaborate across the group boundaries. The discussions in the meeting helped us make them more powerful.

Prior to this meeting there was a meeting of World Wide Study Organising Committee, where they concluded to stop many of their panels. This is because some roles of these panels overlapped with those of the new common task groups. They think that many of the roles can be transferred to the new common task groups. However, this requires some modification or extension of the tasks as the overlap is not perfect. There were discussions on how the modification be made, and it is clear that for each common task group the best possible way will be different. In principle, each group can identify the important tasks for it to elaborate. The groups can also develop when there is a consensus of the LOI groups.

For instance, much discussion was held on for the detector R&D panel, and they converged to a view that a close link to the R&D collaborations, which are independent of the LOI groups, would be very important. Actually we have been thinking of this same idea for months and it was very useful that through the discussions we found a way to realise it. We plan to ask a few more experts for the detector components, which are crucial and/or missing now, to join the group to strengthen the link. A similar need for the reinforcement of the Physics Panel was discussed. In this case, we decided to consult the regional bodies to suggest more candidates for membership. This group will study possible scenarios for different possible outcomes from the LHC. Therefore we would welcome participation of theorists.

As a result of this meeting, the next steps are being performed for the setting up of the common task groups. When all the members are known, selected conveners will join the Physic and Experiment Board to report their activities and to communicate with each other.